


i always make such expensive mistakes

by kadaransmuggler



Series: they've forgiven my mistakes [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, Revenge, i literally do not know what to tag this, of an OC, that sucks and deserves it, there's also a single fleeting mention of past sexual assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 01:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16713820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadaransmuggler/pseuds/kadaransmuggler
Summary: "His only regret is that he will not be there to watch his father die."Or, Caspian Trevelyan goes home.





	i always make such expensive mistakes

When Caspian Trevelyan returns to Ostwick, there is no one to greet him. There are no banners flown in his name, nothing to indicate that the Bann had ever called him a son. When Caspian Trevelyan returns to Ostwick, he is alone, and there is something about it that rankles under his skin.

  
They had called him Herald and now they call him Inquisitor, and still, there is no word from his father. When he rides through the city, he does not bother to hide the sickly green of the Anchor (it flares with his thoughts, but none he passes know him well enough to even begin to guess at that). When he notices stares, he meets them, chin tilted defiantly, black hair glinting in the sunlight. Let them see. Let them know that the Inquisitor had finally come home. 

* * *

There is no one to greet him, but servants let him into the castle all the same. It is an elven boy who takes his horse, stammers something out. Caspian gives him a thin-lipped smile and presses a sovereign into his hand. The boy’s eyes light up, and the tightness of Caspian’s smile is eased just a little, just for a moment.

  
Another servant is waiting in the entry and nervously asks for his cloak and staff. Caspian gives them up easily- he doesn’t need a staff to be dangerous anymore, and when he removes the cloak it reveals his robes. They were Vivienne’s handiwork. The two of them disagreed over many things, but when Caspian had told her he was going to Ostwick to speak with his father, she’d insisted. The end result was something intimidating, a sharp cut that draped over his form and accentuated his golden eyes. His hair hung loose, falling down to his shoulders and framing his face with blunt edges.

  
“This looks like I’m going into battle. I’m just going to speak to an old man,” Caspian had said, an amused glint in his golden eyes. Vivienne had only given him a gracious smile, stepping in front of him to adjust the collar.

  
“Even a battle of wills is a battle, my dear. And I want you to look the part,” she said, stepping back and eyeing him critically.

  
Now, standing in the middle of his childhood home, Caspian Trevelyan looks every inch the Inquisitor. He does not look like a Circle mage, or an apostate, or a maleficar, although he was all of these things. He looked, he supposed, like the son of one of the most influential men in the Free Marches. 

* * *

Bann Arthur Trevelyan is sitting at a long dining table in the center of the dining room. In the nineteen years since Caspian has been gone, locked away in the Ostwick tower, the decor has not changed. The paintings lining the walls and the sculptures in the corner sport a fine layer of dust. This he notes with a critical eye- even in the drafty corners of Skyhold, it is clean.

  
Arthur is also alone at the table. Caspian notes this, too. Edith Trevelyan had not been his mother, of course, but Caspian has few memories of his father where she was not by his side. She had been quick to remind him that he was a bastard, too. And though she is not at the table, the chair across from the Bann had been hastily pushed back, the carpet wrinkled underneath. Edith Trevelyan had been at the table, but she was not at the table any longer.

  
How it must rankle to see her husband’s bastard son leading the most powerful organization in Thedas.

  
“Caspian Trevelyan. Herald of Andraste. Inquisitor of the Inquisition,” Arthur says, a mirthless smile on his face. Caspian sits down in the seat that he assumed Edith had hastily abandoned.

  
“Arthur Trevelyan. Bann of Ostwick. Terrible father,” Caspian answers, disdain dripping from his voice the way Vivienne helped him master. He truly did have a lot to thank her for. And Dorian, he supposed.

  
Arthur gives him a thin-lipped smile. A servant steps forward then, a pitcher of wine in his hands. Caspian interjects, taking the pitcher with a smooth smile and pouring two glasses.

  
“Why have you come?” Arthur asks, reaching for his wine glass. He holds it in his hand, finger tapping against the glass.

  
“I thought it was time to come home. See what you’ve done with the place. The answer is clearly nothing,” Caspian answers, voice measured and steady, face impassive. He had learned a long time ago how to master that look of impassivity. The Templars couldn’t use anything against him when they couldn’t read him well enough to figure out what would work.

  
“And I suppose you would have done it differently?” his father asks, weary. Caspian swallows back the bitter taste of regret- he should not have come. He had known, long before he had begun this journey, that he would never be enough for his father. He could bring all of Thedas to its knees before him, could be the most important person in the room at any given moment, and Arthur wouldn’t care.

  
“I would have, yes,” Caspian answers. He is not talking about the dining room decor any longer. Arthur sighs, dragging his hand down his face.

  
“And what would you have had me do, Caspian? Flout the Chantry laws?” Arthur demands. Caspian shoots him a withering look and Arthur takes a long sip from his glass. Caspian fills it once more when he puts it down.

  
“I was ten years old,” he answers, voice flat. He does not fidget- he will not let his father see that this still bothers him. Nineteen years had passed, all but the last locked behind cold stone walls.

  
“It mustn’t have been that bad, Caspian. You could have written to me,” his father replies. And Caspian should have expected it- of course his father would try to turn it around. Try to place the blame on Caspian.

  
“I did, Father. And the Templars never sent the letters. But shall I tell you what I went through in that Circle? Shall I tell you what you condemned me to?” he asks, leaning forward with just enough flint in his voice that Arthur leans back.

  
“I suppose your food was bland and the Templars didn’t treat you like a Bann’s son?” Arthur asks, a chill seeping into his voice. It is cold enough to make Caspian’s bones ache.   
“You don’t know a Maker-damned thing,” Caspian answers, pushing his chair back. He had gone through too much ( _Templars cornering him in the library, rucking his robes up just enough that he knew what they really meant, the threat of Tranquility hanging heavy over his head, years in solitary confinement, rage simmering under his skin and pressing against the Veil_ ) for his father to dismiss it all.

  
“I had come to give you a chance to make amends. I see now that it is only one more thing you have failed to do,” he says. Despite the anger thrumming under his skin, he is too proud for it to show it. His voice is steady, his hands do not shake. His movements are controlled and measured.

  
“I beg your pardon,” Arthur begins, but Caspian cuts him off before he can finish.

  
“Then beg. As of today, you are no longer my father. Sister Nightingale will handle the situation- there will be no records left that we were ever related. And when the Trevelyan name is mentioned…the world will think of the Inquisitor instead of a washed up Bann from a city in the Free Marchers,” Caspian tells him, spinning on his heel and stalking off. The hem of his robe flares around him. Vivienne had planned it well- had she known he would make a dramatic exit? Was he that predictable, or did Vivienne know him better than he thought?

  
By the time he steps outside, his horse is already saddled and waiting. The elven boy is nowhere in sight, but Caspian leaves a small pouch of sovereigns in the stables anyway before he swings into the saddle. 

* * *

Dorian Pavus is waiting for him outside the city. Caspian slows and Dorian’s horse falls into step beside his own.

  
“So, how did it go?” Dorian asks, familiar grin on his face. Caspian flicks open his ring. It was an old thing, passed down to him from his aunt Victoria. The design used to be common among women of the nobility. Occasionally, they were still used.

  
“You know how I told you that you should hear your father out? Give him the chance to apologize properly?” Caspian says.

  
“I do, yes. I was very upset about it on the ride back to Skyhold,” Dorian reminds him.

  
“I am a terrible hypocrite,” Caspian informs him. Dorian’s laughter rings out as their horses race towards the horizon. Back at the Bann’s palace, Caspian suspects that the poison is beginning to take effect.

  
His only regret is that he will not be there to watch his father die.

**Author's Note:**

> is this going to come back to bite caspian in the ass? not legally, but definitely emotionally


End file.
